The ten dharma realms smack of religiosity. Whenever I tell my friends that Buddhism is not a religion of blind belief but a rational system of mental cultivation practices, they say: But your website speaks of hell realms, hungry ghosts and other such religious-sounding, old-fashioned things.
They are correct. However, although Master Hsuan Hua speaks of the hell realms, he makes it clear that he is speaking of the mental state of sadness, despair, and all that other bad stuff. And he makes it clear that the cultivation of happiness is the antidote for that realm, not prayer to a sky-god. So let’s just call the bottom realm the realm of unhappiness and phooey on the Christian concept of eternal hell-fire for non-Christians.
It’s time to drop religious-sounding terms from Buddhism. Why even speak of the hell realms? Why not just speak of the Buddhist practice of cultivating happiness as the first step of practice? (at howtopraticezen.com, this translates into the practice taught by Master Hakuin).
And if the hungry ghosts of the ninth dharma realm are just embodiments of hatred and anger, as Master Hua teaches, why do we even need to mention them? We can instead speak of the cultivation of loving kindness as the second step of practice, and call the ninth dharma realm the realm of ill will.
If the eighth dharma realm of animals is created by intense greed, as Master Hua teaches, and if its antidote is the practice of generosity, perhaps we can just recommend the cultivation of giving, which can take many forms other than the mere writing of checks, without tying that practice to leaving the dharma realm of animals. And we can refer to the dharma realm of greed rather than the dharma realm of animals.
The peace-generating practice for countering the seventh dharma realm of the asuras, the fighting gods, is mindfulness of the body. To even suggest that this weird dharma realm exists is to invite extreme skepticism. It makes more sense to teach the four steps of mindfulness of the body as enunciated by the Buddha in the Anapanasati Sutta without even mentioning the dharma realm that is transcended by such practice. If we have to name the seventh dharma realm, we can just call it the realm of aggression and the practice to transcend that realm is the cultivation of a peaceful body.
The desire-lessening practice for countering sense desire is mindfulness of feelings. The sixth dharma realm is already aptly named as the realm of sense desire. But we can call it the realm of precepts because the four steps of mindfulness of feelings are the onset of unstable rapture, followed by sustained serenity, the abatement of breathing, and the still forest pool of compete equanimity. None of those four steps can appear if the precepts are not kept. Hell-dwellers, hungry ghosts, animals and asuras cannot keep precepts. Humans can.
Mindfulness of the Mind is the practice that reduces our attachment to the lower six worlds of the desire realm and which lifts us from the fifth dharma realm of the gods of the lower six worlds – another dharma realm that strikes modern people as bizarre. So let’s call the fifth dharma realm what it is: A very happy realm but a realm where the happiness doesn’t last.
The practice that lifts us from the fourth dharma realm of the Arhats and the fetter of the desire to remain in the world of form is mindfulness of mind objects. This dharma realm and the three realms that follow it are problematic because the Pali Canon defines an Arhat as a Buddha, as one who has done the work and has become fully emancipated. The Mahayana demotes the Arhat to a cultivator who can liberate himself but not others. So how can we rename this dharma realm? We can call it the highest and most perfect realm, but with three realms that are even higher and more perfect.
The third dharma realm of the Pratyeka Buddhas, transcended by realization, backwards and forwards, of the twelve links of dependent origination, is exceptionally hard to explain to newcomers to Buddhism. The ancient texts explain that a Pratyeka Buddha is self-taught when there is no Buddha in the world and if there is a Buddha in the world, the Pratyeka Buddha becomes enlightened upon hearing the teachings of the Buddha.
It is easier for a teacher to simply teach the twelve links without tying them to the third dharma realm and the fetter of the desire to remain in the formless world. But we can never forget that the Buddha taught that no one attains enlightenment who has not seen the twelve links forwards and backwards. A cultivation program that omits the twelve links omits a critical link. So rather than calling this the dharma realm of the Pratyeka Buddhas, let’s just call it the dharma realm where the doctrine of dependent arising is understood. We don’t have to say that such understanding leads to the breaking of the cycle of re-birth, re-death, rebirth.
And the same applies to the second dharma realm of the Bodhisattvas. The practice associated with this dharma realm is the solving of koans, aided by the mindfulness developed in the previous steps, and teaching. We can call it the dharma realm of solving koans and teaching. But the idea of a Buddha-to-be is quite clear so this dharma realm does not need re-naming as long as the idea of a Bodhisattva is explained.
The Buddhas of the first dharma realm also teach and that is not so hard to explain. But how do we explain what a Buddha is?
So we only need to rename the eight lower dharma realms: The new names would be the dharma realms of sadness, ill will, greed, aggression, sense desire, happiness that doesn’t last, the realm of perfection, and the realm of even greater perfection. The names of the top two dharma realms, that of the Bodhisattva and the Buddha are best left alone.
As new practitioners become mature in their practices, they can learn of the correlation of the practices and the dharma realms.
But when speaking to non-Buddhists, I no longer mention the dharma realms because most people find them to be religious creations. Far better, I have found, to speak of a series of practices that cultivate happiness, loving kindness, generosity, and non-aggression, which leads to lessening of sense desire if the precepts are followed, freedom from sense desire which generates great but temporary happiness, great enlightenment, even greater attainment, followed by the Buddha-to-be and Buddhahood itself which is simply ineffable.
So here’s a haiku, in the required 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables format, that I give to new cultivators so that they can remember the practices without getting bogged down in dharma realm definitions that strike modern people as being just plain weird:
Happy, kind, giving,
Peace, precepts, joy, perfection,
Twelve links, koans, teach.
This haiku does not expressly invoke the ten dharma realms. But the one-to-one correspondence with each dharma realm and its antidote is real, just as real as are the dharma realms themselves.
